Callie and Jimmy-James

Note to readers: This is a long story -- over 23,000 words. I would characterize it as "erotic Romance," with an emphasis on the romantic. I care a lot about the characters and their feelings, and their uncertainties. These are the things that make a story interesting to me.

Callie and Jimmy-James

Jimmy reconnects with his red-headed first-grade crush in college

Ron Ehrs

I first met Callie at the beginning of first grade.

My family had just moved to this new neighborhood, and the bus stop was just down the street at the corner. The only other student using this bus stop was a little red-haired girl named Callie, whose house was down the block on the other street.

I don't really remember that first day; I'm pretty sure that both of our mothers walked us to the bus stop. Pretty soon, however, we were on our own walking to the bus stop and ended up talking to each other every morning while we were waiting for the bus. We also rode the bus back together at the end of the day, as well as seeing each other during the day at school.

It was easy to become friends with Callie. She was nice, she was smart, and we just enjoyed being together. Sometimes after school we would go to her house or my house to hang out and play games or whatever. TV wasn't a big thing for either of us.

Sometimes, on weekends, we would get together and go down to Johnson Park and go walking along some of the trails there. We enjoyed looking at the trees and the birds and the animals. It felt very grown up to be on our own together, even though the park was only about two blocks from home.

We were pretty much each other's best friends through grade school. We had other friends at school, but none of them lived nearby, so it was natural for us to hang out with each other.

None of this had anything to do with Callie being hot, or even her red hair. We were just kids, and we liked each other and were friends. No big deal.

When we moved on to junior high, things began to change. For one thing, the junior high was closer to home, so we were expected to walk to school rather than take a bus. Also, the junior high had kids from three different elementary schools, so the school was a lot bigger and there were lots of new people to meet.

Probably the biggest thing was that this was the age when hormones first started kicking in, and boys started hanging out more with boys, and girls started hanging out more with girls as they tried to figure out what was going on in this weird new world. Callie started meeting other girls who lived a little further away but who could all meet up on their way to school.

When I started junior high, my parents bought me a bike to ride to school. This was faster, but it also let me hang out with other boys from school who also had bikes and after school we would ride to different places together and hang out.

Callie and I were still friends, but we were in different homerooms and saw less of each other and spent more time with our new friends.

By high school, the whole boy-girl thing was pretty much the biggest thing on everyone's mind. The thing is, Callie, with her red hair and blue eyes and overall good looks, ended up becoming one of the hottest girls in school. I was perfectly okay-looking, good-enough looking in my own way, I suppose, but Callie was in a whole different league. Wherever she went, there were always guys hanging around, wanting to talk to her, wanting to go out with her...

Also, even though I was smart and in good classes, by junior year, Callie was taking AP classes. She would still smile and say "Hi" when we saw each other at school, but so much had changed. Not only was she constantly surrounded by guys at school, she also seemed to be dating a constant stream of different guys.

On my part, I went out on dates with various girls; quite a few of them were perfectly nice, and even nice-looking. But none of them were exciting enough for me to want to go out with on a long-term basis. As for Callie, well, let's just say she was out of my class. Those grade school days with her had become a distant memory.

* * *

It was pretty much a done deal that after high school, both of us would go to State. It was the flagship school of the system and attracted all the best students except for the few who headed out to elite schools on the east or west coast.

I hadn't had a chance to talk to Callie about her summer plans, but I heard some people mention that she was going to Europe for the summer with her family.

Since my parents had no grand tour planned, I needed to find something to do with my final summer before college.

My parents made enough money that they didn't see any sense in having me flip burgers at some fast-food place for the summer. There weren't any academic summer classes that really interested me, but the high school did offer a summer "Boot-Camp" exercise program.

Bill Houlihan, the athletic director at the high school had been a drill sergeant in the Marines ("Hard-ass" Bill Houlihan as he was known on the base). He was deeply offended by the increase in obese and out-of-shape students at the high school and wanted to figure out something to do about it. Gym class was only three days a week, and the students who were most in need of exercise tended to treat it like a joke. There were no grades given, and no one could suffer academically from being fat and lazy.

Mr. Houlihan got together with the track coach and some other members of the athletic department and created an intensive summer work-out program. Five days a week, five hours a day.

Two and a half hours in the morning doing sit ups, pull-ups, weightlifting, and all kinds of calisthenics. Then, after an hour and a half for lunch, students would work with the track coach for a two-and-a-half-hour afternoon session doing sprinting practice and long-distance running.

I wasn't in terrible shape, I wasn't fat or anything, but I wasn't in shape. I hadn't gone out for any team sports, I would just get together with some of the other guys and hang out after school. Riding my bike was probably my main exercise. Getting into shape sounded good, and it was something I knew I wouldn't do on my own. This was my best shot, so I signed up. My parents seemed pretty pleased with the idea -- they were wary of what seemed to be happening to kids in the Internet age.

When I signed up, I had no idea what I was in for. Boot Camp was brutal. The first few days, I felt I had made a huge mistake. I would arrive home in total agony. Still, it would've been humiliating to quit that soon. I spent most of that first weekend trying to get my muscles to stop yelling at me. Week two got a little better; I didn't exactly enjoy it, but it began to feel like I was making progress. By week three, things were getting easier, and I was beginning to see results.

In the weeks after that, I began to feel a real difference in myself and realized I was looking forward to my workouts. I even started going to the local swimming pool and doing laps over the weekend as a kind of cross-training.

By the end of week ten, I was in absolutely the best shape of my life and loving it.

We started with a total of 30 students, five girls and 25 guys. By mid-August, we were down to two girls and 12 guys, and we had all become friends.

When the program finished, I was still no Arnold Schwarzenegger, but I was looking different and was feeling connected with my body in a whole new way.

I had started out with the usual nondescript stoner-style long hair that a lot of the guys had. But about two weeks into the program, I began to feel that my hair was getting in the way of what I was doing and who I wanted to be; I went to one of those sports-clips places and got it cut a lot shorter and with a hipper style.

* * *

Fall semester at state began right after Labor Day. There were a couple of days for move-in and orientation and for last-minute registration changes before classes began the following Monday.

I managed to get a room in Hockney Hall, the first of the two "open" (i.e. co-ed) dorms on the campus. Hockney had been built in the late 1970s -- against the protests of many elderly and very shocked alumni. By now, these dorms were simply part of the campus and tended to draw students who, for whatever reason, were less interested in joining the fraternity/sorority system. I'm not sure if my parents quite realized that not all the dorms were co-ed, but they never said anything about it when they helped me move in.

* * *

College was a big change. The campus was way bigger, different subjects were taught in different buildings, and, including the grad and law students, the school probably had over 40,000 students.

Twice in the first two weeks I happened to spot Callie walking on the other side of one of the quads on her way to class. Her red hair made her easy to spot, even in a crowd. She saw me and smiled and waved, but she was hurrying to her next class.

It wasn't until Monday of the final week of September that I actually ended up running into her. She was walking towards me gave a big smile when she saw me. As usual, she was on her way to class, but she stopped to say hello.

"Jimmy, how are you doing? It's great to see you. Listen, I have to get to class, but I'd love to get a chance to talk to you. Could you meet me for lunch at the student center on Wednesday at noon? I'd love to have some time with you."

Of course I agreed. But part of me wondered how I felt about this. I mean, what was the point? She was completely out of my league -- she was pretty much in a different universe. What would I have to say? I assume she still liked me, but...

I was picturing it ending with her saying, "This has been great. We need to do it again next year." Was I ready for that kind of humiliation?

At least I had a busy schedule to keep from overthinking or at least keep from totally overthinking. After summer boot camp, I had set up a schedule of hitting the weight room three afternoons a week and going running at least twice a week. And my courses would've taken up plenty of time even without that. So I tried to just keep my brain in neutral until lunch on Wednesday.

By Wednesday, something I should've been looking forward to had turned into an object of dread. I was trying to shut off my brain as I walked over to the student center to meet Callie. I felt my stomach knotting up and wondered if I was just going to start nervously throwing up as soon as I saw her.

She was standing there waiting for me, with a big smile on her face. "Jim, so glad you could make it."

I guess I should explain something. When I met Callie in first grade, I was "Jimmy," the name my parents called me, and the way I thought of myself. In junior high, I started calling myself "Jim," which seemed less childish. Now that I was going to college, I had decided to start introducing myself to people as "James." I mean, being in college should mean something, shouldn't it? "Jim" hadn't exactly been a barn-burner in high school. I was ready to change my image. But I knew that anyone who knew me from high school was always going to default to "Jim." I was even a little surprised that Callie wasn't still calling me "Jimmy." But I certainly wasn't about to make an issue of it.

Nothing had changed from high school. Callie was still gorgeous -- stunningly gorgeous. I felt almost embarrassed to be seen with her -- or for her to be seen with me.

The thing is, she didn't seem to notice any of it. She seemed genuinely happy to see me.

We went to the cafeteria area and grabbed trays and got some lunch. Then we found a table and sat down together.

She asked me what courses I was taking. There were certain general course areas that all freshmen had to include, but there was room for some individual choices. I had picked out an introductory course in architecture and an introductory course in engineering to fill out my schedule.

"My dad is an accountant," I explained. "He does pretty well and he has some big clients to deal with and complicated kinds of work to do for them, but I have an uncle Frank who is an architect and every time we get together with him he's always excited about whatever he's working on. For him, it's not just some regular job. It's what he loves. It's his life. And I figure if I'm going to get a job,

Callie thought that was a great idea. She was mainly focusing on history and economics. "My dad is a lawyer. He works on a lot of business deals and leases and stuff like that. I think he enjoys it pretty much. I don't know if that's what I would want to do, but if I could get a summer internship at his firm, they have lawyers who deal with all sorts of different things, so I might get a better idea of what I might like to do if I went on to law school."

I was having a way better time than I had expected. Callie was genuinely interested in what I was telling her, and was enjoying telling me about her courses and career ideas.

Still, I was feeling super-cautious about everything. Did I deserve any of this? I kind of figured that after lunch she would simply return to her world and I would go back to mine.

When we finished lunch, Callie said, "This has been great. I need to get to my next class, but would you like to get together this weekend? Maybe on Saturday? If you like, you could come by in the afternoon and we could walk around the campus. It's a pretty big campus, and all I know is the dorm and some of the buildings where I have classes. It might be fun for us to take a tour together. Would you like to meet me in front of Emerson Hall around two? Would that be okay? I think it would be a lot of fun."

If I had had an appointment to meet the Pope at 2 o'clock on Saturday, I would've told him to fuck the hell off. Of course it would be okay. Crawling naked over crushed glass to be with her would be okay.

As Callie walked away, her hips swaying in the sun, I tried to make sense of what had just happened. The problem was, none of it made sense. I was as confused as ever. Maybe even more so.

* * *

At noon on Saturday, I was frantically trying to figure out what to wear for meeting Callie. Obviously not a suit even though I was kind of wishing I had a tux for the occasion. Finally I settled on a pair of khakis freshly ironed from the laundry and a white button-down shirt. I mean it wasn't really a date, was it?... Was I reading way too much into just getting together with her to walk around the campus?

I started walking over to Emerson Hall around 10 minutes before two. (Emerson Hall was the other "open" dorm on campus; it had been built about 10 years after my dorm.) I definitely didn't want to be late, but I didn't want to be there early either. As I got close, I could see Callie standing in front of the building waiting for me. I mean you could see her amazing red hair way before you could see anything else. As I got closer, I saw she was wearing a red kilt-style skirt that reached almost to her knees and had green lines and patterns like one of those Scottish tartans. She was also wearing a white button-down shirt, and was wearing forest-green socks that stopped below her knees. It was some strange combination of the hottest Catholic schoolgirl outfit ever (I preferred not to think that that part of it turned me on) and a model for some upscale preppy clothing catalog. All that, and her amazing red hair that seemed ready to blind mere mortals who dared to look at her.

For a moment I was tempted to try to pretend I hadn't seen her and hide. But it was too late for that, she had already seen me and was smiling happily.

* * *

"I picked up a map from the information desk at the dorm," she said. "I thought it would be good to know what we were looking at."

We set out in a somewhat random direction, but then began to methodically cover one area of the campus and then another. It was nice getting to learn where some of the things were, like the student theater, the art building, and the art museum. A lot of the others were simply buildings I forgot about once we were past them.

It was fun hanging out with Callie in this informal way. We would talk about some of the things we were seeing, but I didn't feel any special pressure to be anything other than myself.

* * *

Finally, after we had checked out pretty much all the buildings, we arrived at the Arboretum Park at the far end of the campus. Fall hadn't really begun yet, so there were plenty of flowers and the trees' leaves were still green. There was a path running around in the park for people to walk and enjoy nature and take a break from academics.

As we began walking down the path, Callie took my hand in hers. "Remember when we used to go walking together in Johnson Park, Jimmy? And I would take your hand? I think at first you weren't sure about that, but pretty soon you were holding my hand tight and we were just walking along together. It seemed very grown-up at the time, just the two of us together like that. Sometimes I would look over and I would see this look on your face, very determined, like, 'This is my girl, and no one's taking her away from me.' It was so cute, and I really loved you taking charge that way."

Wow. Had I really done that? I couldn't remember, but I loved the image. All of it. And I loved feeling her hand in mine as we were walking along together.

"That's a really nice memory," I said. "Things were so simple and clear back then. I mean in a lot of ways it's nice to move on, but in other ways I miss it."

"Well, you have at least part of it now," she reminded me, squeezing my hand.

I did, which was making me all the more terrified of the moment ending.

* * *

When we reached the end of the path, I had no idea what to do. Was this the end of our "date"? It was a little after five, and I just wanted to keep being with her forever.

"Listen," she said, "would you like to go over to Vito's and get some pizza? Their pizza is really good."

We headed over to Vito's. We were early enough that it was easy to get a booth.

Over pizza, Callie told me about her summer.

"I imagine that you heard that I was going to Europe with my parents over the summer. The main reason was they wanted me to have a chance to meet my grandparents and my relatives. My father was born in France, and my mother was born in Denmark.

We started by spending a week in Paris seeing all the tourist sites. Then we went the southeastern part of France and spent ten days with my grandparents in a little village side of the city called Grenoble. I also got to meet some of my French cousins and an aunt and uncle of mine. It was really neat. I loved having the chance to spend time with my grandparents and meeting all my cousins and my aunt and uncle. And everywhere we were, the food was amazing. I had studied French all through high school; it helped a bit, but it was a pretty intense immersion into the language. I learned a lot, but I'm still nowhere near fluent.

"After that, we went over to Rome and spent a week there. Again, amazing food and wine and an incredible city to explore.

"Then we went and spent a few days in Switzerland before going on to spend a week in Berlin. After that, we flew to London and spent a week there seeing as much as we could, and then we went up to Scotland. We were staying in Edinburgh, which was really neat, although I got tired of listening to bagpipes all the time.

"The thing was, on my mom's side, some of my ancestors were from Scotland. I was hoping maybe I could find out what clan my family belonged to and what tartan I was supposed to wear. We didn't end up finding out anything about our family roots. I guess I had been picturing, you know, a family history like something out of Braveheart? Or maybe something sexy like Outlander? So I could talk to everyone about my family clan and all that. I mean I'm pretty sure my red hair is from Scotland. I know it isn't from Denmark. Anyhow, for all I can tell, my family may have been just peasants tilling the fields for some lord or something. Maybe that's why they left.